Hunted (1952) On DVD

If the plot of the 1993 Kevin Costner film A PERFECT WORLD seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps it's because it bears a more than passing resemblance to the British-made 1952 thriller THE HUNTED (U.S. title: STRANGER IN BETWEEN). Dirk Bogarde stars in this emotional melodrama as an escaped murderer, sloshing through the North Country mud. Bogarde is reluctantly saddled with a fugitive orphan boy (Jon Whitely), who insists upon tagging along. The murderer ends up sacrificing his freedom to rescue the injured boy from certain death. While THE HUNTED was greeted with moderate enthusiasm in Britain, its virtues were trumped by the French film critics of the era.